1

VOICEPrints
JOURNAL OF THE NEW YORK SINGING TEACHERS’ ASSOCIATION
MAY--JUNE 2017
IN THISIssue:
On-Demand Learning: Comparative Voice Pedagogy....................................................................................................................Page 1
New PDP On-Site Course: Vocal Tract Tuning for Contemporary Singing: How Vocal Tract Shape and Vibratory Mode
Affect the Spectrum with Brian Gill .....................................................................................................................................Page 1
Message from President Judith Nicosia.................................................................................................................................Page 2
Message from VOICEPrints Editor Anna Hersey....................................................................................................................Page 3
FEATURE ARTICLE: “Hi-ho, the Glamorous Life! Insights from an American Vocal Coach in Germany,” by Ellen Rissinger......Pages 3-4
FEATURE ARTICLE: “Necessary Roughness in the Voice Pedagogy Classroom: The Special Psychoacoustics
of the Singing Voice” by Ian Howell............................................................................................................................Pages 4-7
International Congress of Voice Teachers 2017: “The Future of Singing,” in Stockholm, Sweden...................................................Page 8

OREN LATHROP BROWN PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM OREN LATHROP BROWN PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

FEATURED COURSE: NEW COURSE:

Comparative Voice Vocal Tract Tuning for Contemporary
Singing: How Vocal Tract Shape and
Pedagogy Vibratory Mode Affect the Spectrum
A Comprehensive Review with Brian Gill
ON-DEMAND ONLY
LIVE—ON-SITE
Review the past informative seasons of Janet Pranschke
NYSTA’s favorite On-Demand PDP course. Moderator Saturday, May 27, 1:00 EDT
79 Madison Ave, NYC
During each yearly course, master teachers present teaching demonstrations
after case histories of students are discussed. Concrete links are made be- $50 Members, $65 Non-Members
tween various teaching strategies and the scientific and medical information
This class will cover the basics regarding
covered in other courses of the PDP program.
the acoustics of the singing voice with an em-
This course is available On-Demand 24 / 7 from the comfort of your home or phasis on formant/harmonic interaction and Brian Gill
office! Start any time and receive up to four full months of access. the resultant spectra. Vocal fold contact time, using data from EGG/ELG
Graduate credit is also available in conjunction with Westminster Choir College will be included, as the thickness of the folds as well as their contact
at Rider University. For more information, contact NYSTA’s Professional duration affects the acoustics generated at the vocal fold level. While
Development Program Director Felicity Graham at pdpdirector@nyst.org. some comparisons will be shown with regard to the differences in vocal
tract tunings of classical and non-classical singing, the emphasis of the
course will be on resonance strategies found in non-classical singing,
PAST PRESENTERS including musical theater—legit and belt—gospel, folk, and pop music.
Both recorded and live examples of these tunings will be explored.
2014: Richard Leech, Elizabeth Kling, Amy L. Cooper, John West,
David McCall, and Lisa Rochelle. Not in New York? Not a problem. Although the course is being
offered live, on-site in NYC, purchasing the course also gives you FOUR
2013: Jeanne Goffi-Fynn, Matthew Hoch, Lori McCann, Jan Prokop,
Melissa Cross, and Margaret Lattimore. MONTHS of access to the video archive of the course.

2012: Stephen Oosting, Taina Kataja, Jeffrey Gall, Justin Stoney,
Margaret Cusack, and Mary Saunders-Barton.
2011: Margaret Baroody, Gwendolyn Bradley, Scott McCoy, Sally Morgan,
Michael Paul, Michael Rider, and Patrick Wickham.
2010: Herbert Burtis, Judith Coen, Jeanette LoVetri, Lori McCann,
Scott McCoy, Patricia Raine, and David Sabella-Mills (with Marvin Keenze,
moderator)
Tenor Brian Gill, DMA, Certificate in Vocology, and 2011 Van L.
Lawrence Fellowship winner, is associate professor of voice at Indiana
University Jacobs School of Music. He was previouslyn associate profes-
sor /director of vocal pedagogy at New York University’s Steinhardt
School and Voice Center (Langone Medical Center). He has also taught
at Eastern Kentucky University, Pace University, University of Kentucky at
Lexington, and University of Colorado at Boulder.
 2

MESSAGE FROM THE In the lesson, we can extend the singer’s musical confidence (when the
President singer is ready) by not playing every note of the exercise with him or her. I
begin by doubling every note, especially with those who are uncertain singers
or beginners, but soon I start leaving out notes until the singer can go it alone
with just a V7 chord for the next starting pitch (and no sustaining pedal!!). It’s
The Total Lesson enlightening to ask the singer to go up or down by half steps to the next key of
the exercise without hearing the piano chord underneath. Usually, with a bit of
When teachers gather to talk, there is a fairly constant lament these days
practice, singers will surprise themselves and be fairly confident of the next key
concerning the lack of preparation singers have for collegiate or professional
without piano support. Another trick I use is stopping to chat a bit (or tell an
study. Coming out of high school, many have not studied a single non-English
extended anecdote), then asking the singer if he or she still can remember the
language, have no background in another instrument (including piano, which
last pitch sung. If no other pitch has occurred in the intervening time, many
they desperately need), do not know what a key signature is nor what it
singers can do this, much to their surprise. Lastly, it’s a nice challenge to ask if
means, do not know how to count rhythms, have virtually no knowledge of
the singer can begin a familiar piece without hearing the accompaniment.
who the major vocal figures are (no matter what genre), and on and on. What
Again, many can do this (in the correct key) and they don’t even know it. All
do they know? Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and every other social media app
these ideas are used in the spirit of making the singer independent of the ac-
they can load on their smart phones—none of which will help them learn a
companiment and a stronger musician. Most are quite delighted when they
new piece of music on their own.
realize how much they have grown in this regard.
I have always felt that it is the responsibility of the private teacher, no
Though I insist on organized vocalization for my singers, I find too many
matter what the age and musical level of the student, to incorporate musical
times (and I hear it from the practice rooms as well) that students are hap-
knowledge of all kinds into the lesson. Although a lesson is anywhere from 30
hazardly running through any number of exercises without rhyme or reason,
to 60 minutes long, there is still time to check briefly on any number of things
not looking for anything in particular except the sound of their own instru-
and to reward the student when the right information is provided. What is
ments. Nothing is being “built” in the warm-up and therefore little is retained
the key signature (or what does a flat/sharp/natural sign mean), what is the
in performance. When asked what the purpose of a particular exercise is, many
meter and what musical unit gets one count or one beat, how many sections
have either no idea whatsoever, or an incorrect picture of what they are sup-
to the piece (ABA, AB, etc., which engenders a short discussion of strophic or
posed to gain/remember from that particular set of notes. When this happens
through-composed, etc.), what do the markings in the piano part mean (be-
with one of my singers, I blame myself: I have not been clear enough on the
cause sometimes the pianist doesn’t know either), what do the dynamic mark-
necessity of healthy, systematic warm-ups and what each exercise, in order, is
ings mean, how fast should this piece go (and how to determine that from the
designed to achieve. Once more, back to the drawing board!
app on your phone!), what constitutes a vocal/musical phrase, what clues tell
Part of our mission as teachers must obviously go beyond the standard vocal
you where to breathe, who is / was the poet or lyricist, when was the piece
technique we espouse. Our mission must include as much of the broader values
composed and for what purpose…the list is endless, as you know.
of being a musician as we can comfortably manage in each lesson. We need to
Instilling in singers the discipline of the musical profession, again no matter
give specific assignments that require a singer to seek out additional informa-
the genre, is a life-long task for all teachers. Singers need a way to approach
tion, that ask him or her to build new skills each week. That may mean we
music and singing systematically, a “method,” if you will, that gets them from
wind up teaching a bit of theory or history or keyboard in our lessons. Our
A to Z with knowledge, confidence, and consistent results, especially when
students will be the richer for it. If we don’t ask for a spirit of discovery in every
they are in a hurry to learn something. There is no greater joy for me than to
piece, if we do not encourage exploration by students for their own sake, if
ask a student some of these questions quickly, receive the correct answers (or
we do not teach “total lessons” and a systematic development of vocal and
at least some of them) and know the singer has done his or her homework and
musical skills, there is the very real possibility that our students will never have
is ready to really delve into the mysteries of artistry. When I ask for that prepa-
that knowledge, will never be the confident performers they could be, and will
ration, I am trying to build a thorough approach to learning that will serve the
never realize their musical potential.
student, and potential future colleague, the rest of his or her life.
Thinking of assignments reminds me to share with you a very useful app for
That approach includes getting a singer to vocalize every day (when prac-
learning and pronouncing the International Phonetic Alphabet in all languages.
tice time is available) in an organized manner, using exercises that show how to
It’s called IPA Phonetics (works on smart phones and tablets), and it includes
wake up the breathing muscles, stretch the range at both ends, utilize semi-
video of a man pronouncing every vowel and consonant on the extensive chart.
occluded vocal tract exercises (such as lip trills, tongue trills, raspberries, hum-
The camera is very close to the person’s mouth, so you can see tongue position,
ming, and flow straws) to conserve breath, practice excellent vowels and bal-
soft palate, lips, teeth—just about all the articulatory structures you need.
anced resonance (and thereby correct intonation), encourage flexible “muscle
Additionally, there are settings on the app so it can be custom-tailored to the
memory,” tackle any number of upcoming vocal challenges by making an
user’s needs. The reviews are from linguistics majors who used the application
exercise out of a difficult phrase or musical gesture (which includes chromatic
to become familiar with the sounds of various languages. It is incredibly useful
scales at some point), and vary the dynamics on each exercise (once mf, twice
if you have singers who struggle with language pronunciation (yes, it can help
p). Such a vocalizing session should not take more than 10-15 minutes, maxi-
non-English speakers also).
mum. The order of the exercises should build good habits that naturally lead
As this is my last message as President, I want to welcome my successor,
to the goal of effortless sound, and the student must be made aware that the
Matthew Hoch, who will be firmly in command of NYSTA by mid-summer. I
order (not necessarily set in concrete!) is an important part of that goal. At the
wish him all the best as he comes to grips with NYSTA’s future. Please extend
end of vocalization, I suggest every singer perform her “touchstone” piece: a
him all the support you can—volunteers gratefully welcomed!
song or aria that sets the voice up in a great place just by virtue of its inherent
qualities. A singer may not have one at first but eventually such a work comes May your pharynx always be moist.
to mind. My touchstone was, and still is, Mozart’s “Dans un bois solitaire.”
When that piece felt good, I was ready to go. When it didn’t, back to the Judith Nicosia , President
drawing board. president@nyst.org

MESSAGE FROM THE Editor
Dear Colleagues,
In our previous issue, we featured an expert panel dis-
cussing the academic job market in music, and our first feature article in this
issue continues in a related vein. On the performance track, a plethora of
advice is available about the young artist audition circuit here in the United
States. Pursuing a career abroad can be even more daunting, and few resources
on this topic are available. Ellen Rissinger, creator and curator of The Diction
Police website and podcast, offers a unique perspective on building a successful
performance career in Europe. She recounts her own experience, obstacles
and successes alike.
Our second feature article, by psychoacoustics trailblazer and VOICEPrints
Associate Editor Ian Howell, suggests a new paradigm within which we can
HI-HO, THE GLAMOROUS LIFE! Insights from an American Vocal Coach in Germany
by Ellen Rissinger
TEACHER: Have you ever seen the Dom in Köln (the
cathedral of Cologne)?
ME: No, I’ve never been to Europe.
TEACHER: You cannot play the sixth song of Dichter-
liebe properly unless you have seen the Dom in Köln.
I never had any intention nor any desire to
come to Europe. The idea of flying over an ocean
terrified me, my mother never wanted her children to be that far away, and the
arrogance of youth told me that I didn’t need to come to Europe. So when this
conversation with my teacher in grad school took place, I inwardly scoffed, telling
myself that he was exaggerating. Just because he studied in Germany, he thinks
everyone needs to go there, I thought. Seven years later, after a few young artist
programs, and several years doing contract work for opera companies, I showed
my résumé to people at some of the major opera houses in the US, and they all
said that they were looking for coaches /pianists with experience in repertoire
houses. “Go to Europe!” they said, and for the first time I took it seriously. My
plan was to spend three to five years in Germany and then, of course, to move
back home. It’s been fourteen years now, and what I’ve learned in that amount
of time—about the job, about the world, about myself—is incalculable.
When you tell people you live and work in Germany, their expression is gen-
erally one of admiration: they think how “glamorous” your life must be. They
don’t realize the difficulties of being so far away. I spent the first three months
emailing my father every day, wondering what I had done! Dealing with all of the
paperwork when you first get here is practically a full-time job. Just when you
think you’re done, someone else reminds you of another paper that needs to be
filled out and taken to another office. Only my father, a nephew, and my best
friend have ever made it over, and if I want to see my friends and my family, I have
to fly back home. My mother passed away while I was living here. Being away
from family during that time was beyond difficult. It can be incredibly lonely to be
far from everyone for such a long period of time.
On the other hand, one does find an unexpected inner strength. I now know
that I can go anywhere—even to a place where I know no one and don’t speak
the language—and live a successful life, make wonderful friends, and be happy.
Believing that there are no challenges too difficult to overcome brings me a sense
of peace. Knowing that there is nothing that I dream of doing that isn’t attainable
gives me immeasurable confidence. I’m on my own over here—there’s no safety
net—and somehow that is very liberating.
In some ways, being a performer in Europe is considered a job like any other
job. We have a daily schedule and (sort of) set work hours. In Germany, the opera
houses are government-sponsored, so we are, in effect, government employees.
We have full benefits: health and dental insurance, a steady paycheck, a “thir-
teenth” paycheck (extra money at Christmas and summer), and vacation bonuses.
We even have a retirement plan specifically for people with stage careers. In
France and Belgium, performers receive a stipend when they are unemployed,
which allows them to keep working at their craft until they find another perform-
ance opportunity. If one has a full-time contract at an opera house and falls ill
3
identify sung vowels. Professor Howell has challenged existing frameworks,
and I, likewise, challenge you to listen with fresh ears to these possibilities.
This brings my first year as Editor-in-Chief of VOICEPrints to a close, and it
has been a pleasure to serve this fine organization. I am grateful to outgoing
President Judith Nicosia for her leadership and excellent letters. I’m looking
forward to welcoming our new President, Matthew Hoch, who previously
served as Editor-in-Chief of this publication. We are already busy planning
exciting content and new developments for next year. Please send questions,
comments, or article submissions to me directly at voiceprints@nyst.org.
As always, archives of past issues are available on the NYSTA website.
Anna Hersey
Editor-in-Chief, VOICEPrints
during the house’s vacation time, the house must return that time back during
the season. Can you imagine that in the States?
But having a Fest contract in Germany also means that you are part of a huge
machine that has to keep running. You may be rehearsing for two or three dif-
ferent productions at any given time, even on the day of a performance, because
certain people (or rooms!) are only available then to rehearse. You may have
weeks with nothing to do or weeks with a performance every night, because all
the shows you’re cast in happen to be programmed that way.
The Show Must Go On—this takes on a whole new meaning when your Ro-
dolfo, Turandot, or Brünnhilde calls in sick at 9 AM for a 7 PM performance. The
office (the “KBB”) will then call agents and other houses to locate someone who
can sing the role, and a Einspringer (replacement) jumps in, usually after only a
brief Verständigungsprobe (brush-up). One moral of this tale: don’t put some-
thing on your résumé that you can’t sing on any given day—if your agent knows
you sing it, he’ll offer to send you to jump in!
In the United States, opera contracts are for several weeks and you focus on
one piece at a time—it’s called the stagione system. In Germany, repertoire houses
will rotate productions over many seasons; in a single week I played staging re-
hearsals for Les contes d’Hoffmann, worked a performance of Die Zauberflöte,
and gave coachings for Harbison’s The Great Gatsby and Weinberger’s Schwanda
the Bagpiper (in Czech!).
Opera houses have up to eight new productions a season; each gets roughly
six weeks of rehearsal time, a huge shock to me! During my first production in
Germany, at the three-week point, I was feeling like everything was moving at a
glacial pace. The tenor in the production said, “This rehearsal period is really flying
by!” That production was Dialogues des Carmelites. I’d arrived on December 31st
and two weeks later started coaching Germans all day long on French repertoire.
They spoke neither French nor English, and I spoke no German. I was exhausted.
The most frustrating thing was that we had no common ground to help them
figure out the sounds of the French language; European conservatories don’t
usually teach the phonetic alphabet—in fact, diction classes often consist of
students working with a native speaker who happens to teach at the Hochschule.
They learn to pronounce a song or two, without really learning any rules.
I also realized over the course of several years that while I was well-versed in
the rules of diction, the actual sounds were slightly different than I had believed.
Many of my diction teachers had been Americans—being here now brought me
into contact with people from all over Europe, singing in their own languages.
It opened my eyes to the fact that when we learn diction from books, our pre-
conceived notions and the habits of our native tongue affect how that book
translates from reading to speaking.
It was really this that prompted me to create The Diction Police. Friends had
been encouraging me to write a diction book for years. I already owned what
seemed like “all” the diction books—and there are a TON of them. I didn’t really
want to have to describe in words what a vowel sounds like. Instead, I wanted
people to hear them the way I was hearing them! Thus, The Diction Police Podcast
was born, to give the listener the chance to hear foreign languages as native
 4

speakers—people who work in the opera world and know the traditions, the Ellen Rissinger is an American vocal
rules, and when to break them—actually speak them. coach/accompanist on the music staff of the
It has expanded into a full website, with phonetic transcriptions, text read- Sächsische Staatsoper (Semperoper) in Dresden,
ings by native-speaking performers, translations of song into several languages, as Germany. She came to European attention in
well as webinars on lyric diction, Diction Lessons, Diction Tips, a series of fun December 2008, when she accompanied a
Tongue Twisters for Singers, a video with tongue exercises from a speech ther- performance of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth
apist, and of course the podcast continues. Our mission is, and always has
of Mtsensk for the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in
been, to give singers the best tools possible to improve and perfect their diction.
Düsseldorf on one hour’s notice. She has
For anyone interested in moving to
Germany, the best resource I can recom- worked in both the United States—with Opera
mend is still the book What the Fach?! by Company of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh Opera,
Kentucky Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, and

PHOTO: Mathias Creutziger

Philip Shepard, which details almost every-
thing one needs to know about setting up Baltimore Opera—and in many houses in
an audition tour and moving. There used to Germany: Semperoper, Bregenz Opera Festival,
be an unwritten rule that if you wanted to Oper Frankfurt, and Deutsche Oper am Rhein,
audition in Europe, come in November, among others.
The Definitive Guide for Opera Singers
Auditioning and Working in Germany,
spend a month, travel around to audition, She has given master classes with several
Austria, and Switzerland and then go back home—indeed, that is summer music programs in Europe, including the International Performing Arts Institute
essentially what I did when I auditioned in (IPAI) in Kiefersfelden, Germany; the International Music Festival of the Adriatic in
by Philip Shepard Germany. This has changed over the years; Duino, Italy; University of Miami’s summer program in Salzburg, Austria; American
more and more opera houses hold auditions
Institute of Music Studies (AIMS) in Graz, Austria; as well as at several universities in the
throughout the year and sometimes have
United States, including The Hartt School, Boston Conservatory, Oklahoma City
sudden, unforeseen vacancies. Now it’s better to plan to come here for sev-
eral months; if you aren’t in the country when auditions come up, people University, Murray State University, and
won’t make a new time to hear you. the Boston NATS Chapter, among others.
For those interested in breaking into the early music scene, this is even As the producer and host of The
more important. Early music, even in the United States, is mostly about Diction Police Podcast since April 2010,
making connections, and in Europe it’s the same. So if this is your specialty, she has led the way for classical singers
you should plan to move here and get some kind of alternative work while and coaches from all over the world to
you try to establish those connections. Most opera houses shut down in July hone their foreign language skills. Ms.
and August and some only start back up at the end of September, so the Rissinger is fluent in German and
best time to be in Europe would probably be from November to June. English, is conversant in Italian, French,
Oh, and on my audition trip back in 2002, I did travel to Cologne to find
Spanish, and Modern Greek, and
that cathedral. My teacher was right—you really can’t play the sixth song of
continues to work on her conversa-
Dichterliebe properly until you’ve seen the Dom in Köln!
tional ability in Russian.

NECESSARY ROUGHNESS IN THE VOICE PEDAGOGY CLASSROOM:

The Special Psychoacoustics of the Singing Voice
by Ian Howell

Introduction
Science-based voice pedagogy curricula routinely focus on the anatomy
and physiology, vocal fold dynamics, kinesiology, vocal tract acoustics, and
motor learning properties of the singing body. The role of the hearing
mechanism in defining the sound of a singer is frequently under-explored.
However, the human senses are physical systems with limitations that shape
one’s mental image of reality. This mental image is called a percept. The eye
cannot produce a detailed image of a very far or very near object, and
sensitivity to touch is not uniform across the entire body. Such limitations
change the percept of, rather than the objective nature of, an object. As the
sound wave produced by a voice is a physical phenomenon, one can explore
the underlying rules of hearing to ask how one might possibly perceive the
human voice. This is another way of asking what sounds the human voice is
capable of making.
This may seem like an academic, tree-falling-in-the-woods distinction:
that all the richly colored and varied sounds we hear exist as a silent, color-
less soup of vibrating air until they are perceived. However, sound waves can
be understood as instructions for timbre, not the timbre itself. The way in
which the human hearing mechanism reacts to those instructions limits,
colors, and in some cases creates aspects of the voice. Psychoacoustics is
the field of study concerned with these phenomena. This article will explore
and synthesize three such psychoacoustic limitations relevant to singing:
auditory roughness, the resolvability of harmonics into the pitch, and
absolute spectral tone color. My hope is that the resulting framework may
inform the way that registration, vowels, and formants 1 are taught in the
voice pedagogy classroom.
Roughness
Auditory roughness is a buzzing, sometimes pulsing or beating quality introduced
by the inner ear because the cochlea is unable to differentiate simple tones that are
very close in frequency. This is true whether these simple tones are sine tones or
narrowly notch filtered noise from different sources, or adjacent harmonics of a single,
pitched sound. Generally, any two simple tones a minor third or closer will give rise to
such roughness; the closer, the rougher. This interval, called a critical band, is wider at
lower frequencies.2 However, for much of the singable range, the minor third is a
useful, if simplified rule.3 Given a single voice with clear harmonics and low noise,
auditory roughness of adjacent harmonics is generally related to position within the
harmonic series, rather than pitch. From the fifth harmonic (H5) and up, all harmonics
of a voice fall within a minor third (within the critical band) of a neighbor (see Figure
1). As Johan Sundberg notes, the higher the amplitude of such harmonics, the
stronger the roughness they contribute to a singer’s timbre.4 Roughness is related to
voice type and vowel only insomuch as they affect the range of pitches sung and the
amplitude of harmonics higher than H4.
Figure 1. A generic
harmonic series
(in which H1 is
greater than
100Hz) with the
associated quality
of auditory rough-
ness. Musical
intervals indicated
for the lowest six
harmonics.

Pitch
Spectrographs split complex sound waves into their frequency components
and display this information visually. For sounds with pitch, these images tend
to show clearly visible harmonics arranged in the harmonic series. While one
might assume that the lowest harmonic (H1) displayed is the pitch, and higher
harmonics are either audible overtones or aspects of color, the ear folds these
higher harmonics into the pitch. H1 is just a sine tone with a frequency equi-
valent to the pitch. Although one may perceive a high amplitude harmonic as a
separate sine tone, the pitch is a complex percept constructed from the harmonic
series itself. Remove H1 from just about any periodic sound, and the pitch
remains. However, this phenomenon, called the missing fundamental, has limits.
Generally, the lowest eight harmonics resolve neatly into the pitch, while the
ninth harmonic and higher (called unresolved harmonics) contribute progressively
less to the pitch.5 This means that the higher a harmonic is in the series than H9,
the more it exists as part of a separate percept, hanging above, rather than
coloring the pitch.
The intersection of roughness and resolvability may then be shown on a
generic harmonic series (see Figure 2). H1-H5 will create a predominantly pure
percept; H5 and higher will create a percept with progressively stronger auditory
roughness. H1-H8 will neatly resolve into the pitch, which H9 and higher will
progressively escape from. This creates three main perceptual divisions: pure and
resolved (H1-H5), rough and resolved (H5-H8), and progressively rougher and
unresolved (H9 and higher). With some exceptions for very low fundamentals
(<100Hz), the hearing mechanism obligatorily imparts these qualities so long as
harmonics of sufficient amplitude are present. Neither roughness nor resolvability
exists in the sound wave; the ear creates them.
Figure 2. A generic
harmonic series
(in which H1 is
>100Hz) with the
associated qual-
ities of auditory
roughness and
resolvability of
harmonics into
the pitch, and
the three main
perceptual regions
based on the
interaction of
roughness and
resolvability.
Tone Color
Within limits, a human speaking voice can change pitch without changing
timbre (or at least vowel), and timbre without changing pitch. Imagine an
inflected ‘aaaaaaahhhhh’ followed by a monotone recitation. These properties of
sound are demonstrably separable. Despite this independence, Reinier Plomp
explains that, “...pitch and timbre are not entirely unrelated.” He points out that,
“...for the extreme case of a sinusoidal tone without harmonics, the tone’s
frequency as its single variable determines pitch as well as timbre.” 6 Essentially,
sine tones have timbre. Psychoacoustics calls this phenomenon brightness.7 Low-
frequency tones are dark and dull, and high-frequency tones bright and brilliant.
As with roughness and resolvability, brightness is imparted by the ear. 8
Sine tones appear to elicit not just relative timbral differences (a high tone is
brighter compared to a low tone), but also absolute similarities. Two sine tones of
the same frequency are identically bright.9 This is independent of other elements
of timbre: attack, decay, release, or general spectro-temporal flux. This holds true
even if the sine tones are harmonics extracted from different sources playing
different pitches. For example, given the pitches C4 and C5, H2 of C4 and H1
of C5 (both approximately 523Hz) are identically bright. I call this phenomenon
absolute spectral tone color (ASTC) and consider it a very specific sub-attribute
of timbre.10 The ASTC of a harmonic remains constant so long as its frequency
remains constant. This makes intuitive sense in visible color. The same color red
can exist on a variety of objects, because the red percept is the result of sensory
processing. So long as the same receptors in the eye are stimulated in the same
way, it doesn’t matter the source. As the frequency of visible light increases or
decreases, the perceived color changes. As a singer changes pitch, and every
harmonic increases or decreases in frequency, each harmonic similarly changes
ASTC in a predictable way. Conversely, as one changes vowels without changing
pitch, any given harmonic only changes amplitude, not its individual ASTC. If one
5
searches for a connection between the colors one sees and the colors one hears,
ASTC is the appropriate analogy. A vowel is not a single color. A vowel is more
like a painting made up of many individual colors.
Specific frequency ranges of brightness bear meaningful, if subtle, similarities
to the defining qualities of several vowels.11 These associations may be used to
provide anthropomorphic labels along the scale of ASTC. The vowels of the
human singing voice can be thought of as combinations of these absolute
spectral tone colors. Harmonics of sufficient amplitude contribute their ASTCs
regardless of whether that tone color defines the vowel, which helps to explain
how different vowels share similar formant frequencies/spectral peaks. That is to
say that every spectral peak of a vowel generally gives rise to a single, perceptu-
ally separable tone color based on the frequencies of the harmonics that form
it.12 A vowel is the combination of these multiple tone colors. For most vowels,
one spectral peak will define the vowel while the rest add depth and brightness.
This may seem counterintuitive, but it allows for an elegant shift in approach
when discussing the interaction of formants and harmonics. Formants do not
imbue harmonics with timbre. A formant simply amplifies harmonics that fall
under its influence. A harmonic automatically elicits an ASTC based on its
frequency. This helps to explain why an [a] shaped vocal tract (just as an exam-
ple) will not always create the same [a] sound as pitch rises and high amplitude
harmonics no longer directly occupy the ASTC range that defines that vowel. I
believe this explains the perceptual aspects of the phenomenon Kenneth
Bozeman labels passive vowel modification.13
To label ASTC, I use the ‘~’ followed by a letter. This indicates that a sine
tone at that frequency elicits a quality of the dominant tone color of the sound
indicated by the letter when used in the International Phonetics Alphabet.
For example, ~a means: like the dominant tone color of [a] (see Figure 3). I
intentionally avoid labeling this ~[a], although I recognize that this choice will
raise a few eyebrows among linguists. As Figure 4 suggests, [a] is characterized
by several spectral peaks with different tone colors, here at minimum ~ , ~a,
c
and ~i. However, only the second spectral peak contributes the ~a tone color.
Figure 3: The scale of brightness with associated absolute spectral tone color (ASTC)
labels. The ‘~’ followed by a letter indicates that a sine tone at that frequency elicits a
quality of the dominant tone color of the sound indicated by the letter when used in
the International Phonetics Alphabet. For example, ~a means: like the dominant tone
color of [a]. The boundaries are indicated with areas of some ambiguous overlap.
Figure 4: A perceptual
annotation of a sche-
matic of [a] produced
by a male voice at E3.
From left to right, the
spectral peaks occupy
the ASTC ranges of ~ , c
~a, and ~i respectively.
Note that both the F1
(around G5) and F2
(around D6) peaks are
rough and resolved,
and the singer’s for-
mant peak (around F-
sharp7) is rough and
unresolved.
The interaction of a harmonic’s ASTC and its role in eliciting roughness and
resolvability produces a variety of potential percepts, as ASTC is tied to frequency
and roughness and resolvability are tied to position in the harmonic series. If the
harmonics forming a spectral peak are low enough in the series, that spectral
peak’s tone color becomes an aspect of the pitch with a pure quality. If high
enough, that tone color elicits roughness and eventually escapes the pitch. At
low enough pitches, it is quite possible to have vowel defining (F1/F2/F3) spectral
peaks exhibit roughness, and the singer’s formant frequently escapes the pitch
(see again Figure 4).14 Above approximately the pitch F5, one would have to look
in frequency ranges higher than the classically understood male singer’s formant
(centered around approximately 3kHz according to Sundberg)15 to find rough-
ness, and such harmonics may well resolve into the pitch (see Figure 5).
 6
Figure 5: A perceptual annotation of a schematic of [a] produced by a female
voice at G5. Note that all harmonic energy within the range of the piano keyboard
is both pure and resolved. Any roughness or unresolvability would have to exist in
harmonics higher than the range shown here.
Examples
These schematics suggest that voice teachers can benefit from understanding
voice registration in terms of changes in roughness, resolvability, and tone color
as pitch and/or vowel changes. As an introductory example, consider that this C5
sung by Franco Corelli (see Figure 6) exhibits an energized, pure and resolved
peak centered around G6; a rough and resolved peak in the singer’s formant
range centered around G7; and progressively less resolved and rougher harmon-
ics above the singer’s formant. Each of these peaks elicits a different tone color:
~æ, ~i, and bright ~i, respectively. While one might assume that any ring heard
at this pitch in a tenor voice relates to the singer’s formant, all three of these
peaks contribute a perceptually different type of brightness.
Figure 6: A perceptual annotation of an averaged power spectrum of Franco
Corelli’s C5 from “A te, o cara” from Bellini’s I Puritani. The written vowel is /e/ in
“rammento.” Source: Vincenzo Bellini, Bellini Hits, Philharmonia Orchestra, Franco
Ferraris and Franco Corelli, Warner Classics, 2016. Go to https://goo.gl/ kfGWv5 to
watch a video demonstrating the perceptual qualities illustrated in this figure.
A soprano elicits different perceptual qualities when negotiating her
registration challenges. In Figure 7, notice the way that Gundula Janowitz
balances the tone colors of an A-flat5. Her first peak (H1 and H2), which covers
the entire frequency range of the rough F1 and F2 peaks in Figure 4, elicits a
c
pure and resolved ~ quality. The H3-H5 peak, which covers the frequency range
of the male singer’s formant, elicits a pure and resolved ~i quality. H6-H12 (with
a notable peak around D9) elicits a rough and progressively unresolved bright ~i
quality. For both Corelli and Janowitz, remove any one perceptual quality, and the
overall percept changes. Follow the link in each figure caption to watch a video
demonstrating this. These registration solutions do not sound similar. However,
by applying a single set of perceptual rules to both, this psychoacoustic
framework accounts for, explains, and helps predict the sound of both voices
equally well.
Figure 7: A perceptual annotation of an averaged power spectrum of Gundula
Janowitz’s A-flat5 from “Beim Schlafengehen” from Strauss’ Vier Letze Lieder.
Written vowel is /y/ in “Flügen.” Source: Gundula Janowitz, Vier Letze Lieder, Berlin-
er Philharmoniker, conducted by Herbert von Karajan, Deutsche Grammophon, 1971.
Go to https://goo.gl/ kfGWv5 to watch a video demonstrating the perceptual qualities
illustrated in this figure.
Registration may be approached from a variety of pedagogical perspectives,
but the objective sound of the singer at a given pitch, vowel, and intensity is
determined by these perceptual qualities. A soprano with a clear sound will
generally never exhibit strong roughness in her lowest five harmonics. If there is a
strong buzzy quality to her voice, which is quite common in heavier fachs singing
above the staff, it must come from contiguous harmonics higher than H4. Above
the treble staff, this means looking higher than the classically described singer’s
formant range. A tenor will never be able to sing a C5 with a strong and pure
singer’s formant. If one hears a pure ringing quality at that pitch, it exists within
the first five harmonics (likely F2 tuned to either H3 or H4).16 Perhaps most
paradoxically, ASTC requires one recognize that such spectral features have
obligatory tone colors based on the frequency of each harmonic. For example,
Janowitz could not sing a true [u] on A-flat5 (her lowest harmonic is already in
c
~ ), and Corelli’s singer’s formant will always impart an ~i. There are no tech-
nical choices that could change these limitations, as they are imposed by the ear
rather than the voice. This suggests that one may hear specific resonance tuning
strategies not just by picking out a specific harmonic by its frequency, but by the
more comprehensive perceptual qualities of the resulting spectral peaks. These
peaks may be aurally located and separated based on tone color, roughness, and
resolvability.
What Makes the Psychoacoustics of the
Singing Voice Special?
Everything written above can be ignored and comprehension of daily speech
remains robust. This raises an important question: why delve into the complexity
of psychoacoustics at all? Plomp offers a glimpse of the answer. He divides
human sound perception into two broad categories: cognition and audition.17
Cognition is the way one uses previous experience to extract meaning from
sounds. For example, in the sentence, “it is hot outside today,” one need not
hear the exact same central vowel in the word “hot,” to understand the word. If
one speaker says [hæt] (Chicago accent), another [ht] (American radio English)

and the third [h t] (British radio English), the context (both phonetic and
syntactic) is sufficient for comprehension. This is because the position of the
articulators for each phoneme subtly impacts the surrounding phonemes. This is
called coarticulation. In speech, this creates a near constant spectro-temporal

flux; it is rare to find a continuous state, unchanging sound in speech.18 Audition
is the process of perceiving the objective timbral qualities of a sound without
those additional layers of linguistic meaning. The process of audition tells us the
central vowels in the word “hot” are objectively different. In speech, cognition
obviates those differences.
Singing differs from speech in at least two meaningful ways. First, one finds
very few melismas or sustained pitches in speech, and many in singing. The
longer a vowel is sustained, the more distant the coarticulation effect, and thus
the more noticable its objective timbre. Second, humans frequently speak in a
lower and more compact pitch range than they sing. Generally, this fills all ASTC
ranges with one or more harmonics, which is why one doesn’t worry about
formant tuning in speech.19 As pitch rises, and voice source harmonics become
more sparsely distributed over the frequency ranges covered by the vocal tract
resonances, proper alignment of resonances and harmonics becomes more con-
sequential. In the “hot” example above, one or more of those central vowels will
likely better align with a specific singer’s resonance goals at a given pitch. Singers
do rely on the cognition of the listener to create linguistic meaning; however,
they frequently use variations in vocal tract shape to aid resonance and regis-
tration. These adjustments change the physical properties of the sound wave,
which in turn affects the listener’s percept. Though multiple solutions to this
problem do exist (which is why the same pitch range may be sung healthily with
radically different timbres), the number of solutions decreases as pitch rises. The
perceptual limitations of the hearing mechanism come to characterize the sounds
of these solutions. Singers and voice teachers may benefit from as clearly devel-
oped a sense of audition as possible, as they consider technique and tonal mo-
dels with a specificity unnecessary for the casual listener.
Because this psychoacoustic framework is a powerful descriptive and
predictive tool, and because any one aspect of it generates productive discus-
sions, I encourage all those who teach voice pedagogy classes to incorporate
elements of the special psychoacoustics of the singing voice into their courses.
This information can bring detail to the often confusing topics of registration,
tonal models, and especially vowels and formants. Several computer programs
(Overtone Analyzer for analysis, and Madde for synthesis) allow one to easily
filter out portions of the spectral envelope, which lets students contemplate the
aural contributions of the various harmonics and spectral peaks they see on a
spectrogram. This pushes back against the idea that all vowel percepts are the
result of the totality of the spectral envelope, rather than defined by crucial
spectral peaks in specific tone color ranges. I further suggest that spectrographic
analysis of the singing voice (especially the female voice above the staff) benefits
from inclusion of sound up to at least 10kHz-12kHz. This helps to properly
capture the very rough and unresolved aspects of the high voice that are
frequently missing from spectrograms capped between 5kHz-8kHz. Speech
research tends to ignore this high frequency range because it is not critical for
comprehension (cognition). However, the energy in this range may contribute
significant qualities to the objective sound of a singer (audition).20 When critically
listening to recordings of singers, I encourage an informed awareness that both
older, pre-electric microphone recordings, and modern videos compressed for
online viewing frequently fail to accurately reproduce these higher frequency
ranges. Such recordings must be viewed in a spectrograph before one can draw
meaningful conclusions from them. I also encourage listening to recordings at
sound intensity levels similar to what the singer would produce live, as the ear is
less sensitive to higher and lower frequencies as intensity diminishes. While not
obligatory (again, ignore everything above and you will still hear singers),
listening with this deliberate specificity may improve one’s ability to target the
elegant technical solutions needed to make good art.
ENDNOTES
1
Throughout this article, I will use the terms formant and vocal tract resonance
interchangeably.
2 was a 2013 NATS Teaching Intern. He has presented original research at the
Pantelis N. Vassilakis, “Perceptual and Physical Properties of Amplitude Fluctuation
and their Musical Significance” (PhD. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 2001),
194.
3
Sundberg explores this idea in some detail in Johan Sundberg, The Science of the
Singing Voice (Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1987), 108-9, and Johan
Sundberg, “Perceptual Aspects of Singing,” Journal of Voice 8/2, (1994) 114.
4
Sundberg, The Science of the Singing Voice, 108.
5
Sam Norman-Haignere, Nancy Kanwisher, and Josh H. McDermott, “Cortical Pitch
Regions in Humans Respond Primarily to Resolved Harmonics and Are Located in
7
Specific Tonotopic Regions of Anterior Auditory Cortex,” The Journal of Neuroscience
33/50 (December 11, 2013): 19,458.
6
Reinier Plomp, The Intelligent Ear: On the Nature of Sound Perception (London:
Lawrence Erlbaum, 2002), 23-4.”
7
Reinier Plomp, Experiments on Tone Perception (Soesterberg: Institute for Perception
RVO-TNO, 1966), 132.
8
Plomp, Experiments on Tone Perception, 132.
9
Ian Howell, “Parsing the spectral envelope: Toward a general theory of vocal tone
color” (DMA diss., New England Conservatory of Music, 2016), 30.
10
Howell, Parsing, 29. See also Howell, Parsing, 20 for a thorough discussion of the
author’s distinction between timbre and tone color.
11
This line of thought is not particularly new. For further information see Plomp,
Experiments on Tone Perception, 132 and Robert Cogan, Music Seen, Music Heard: a
picture book of musical design (Cambridge: Publication Contact International, 1998), 110.
12
The way in which the ASTC of individual harmonics glue together into the more
complex tone colors of individual spectral peaks, which I call local spectral coherence, is
covered in more detail in Howell, Parsing, 35.
13
Kenneth Bozeman, Practical Vocal Acoustics: Pedagogical Applications for Teachers
and Singers (Hillsdale, New York: Pendragon, 2013), 26.
14
Note, the term ‘F1’ indicates the lowest frequency vocal tract resonance. The pitch F
is preceded by the word, ‘pitch’ to avoid confusion.
15
Sundberg, The Science of the Singing Voice, 118.
16
Keep in mind that intensity of roughness exists on a continuum, and these rules only
apply to a single voice with a pristine signal to noise ratio. E.g. if a soprano has a great
deal of breath noise between H1 and H2, or orchestral instruments fill the frequency
range between a tenor’s H2 and H3, the ear will introduce proportional roughness.
17
Plomp, The Intelligent Ear, 104.
18
Peter B. Denes and Elliot N. Pinson, The Speech Chain: The Physics and Biology of
Spoken Language (New York: W.H. Freeman, 1993), 143.
19
Ingo Titze, Principles of Voice Production, 2nd Edition (Iowa City: National Center for
Voice and Speech, 2000), 258.
20
Recent work into high frequency energy in the singing voice includes: Rebecca
Worthington, “One Ring to Rule Them All: The Complicated Case of Sopranos and the
Singer’s Formant”(Term paper, New England Conservatory, 2016); Brian Monson, et al.,
“The Perceptual Significance of High-Frequency Energy in the Human Voice,” Frontiers
in Psychology 16/5 (2014):1-10; S.O. Ternström, “Hi-Fi Voice: Observations on the
Distribution of Energy in the Singing Voice Spectrum Above 5 kHz,” The Journal of the
Acoustical Society of America 123/5 (2008): 3171-6; Ingo Titze and Sung Min Jin,
“Is There Evidence of a Second Singer’s Formant?”Journal of Singing 59/4 (2003): 329-
31; and Rudolf Weiss, et al., “Singer’s Formant in Sopranos: Fact or Fiction?” Journal
of Voice 15/4 (2001): 457-8.
Praised by the New York Daily News for his “rich
voice, capable of great dramatic force,” and San
Francisco Classical Voice for the “heart at the core
of his soulful sound,” Ian Howell sings with a
warm and seamless tone rarely heard from counter-
tenors. He has sung with Florentine Opera, New
York City Opera, Opera London, and with most
major North American baroque orchestras. In 2006,
Howell won first prize at the American Bach Solo-
ists International Solo Competition with an ac-
claimed performance of Bach’s Cantata BWV 170,
“Vergnügte Ruh,” and third prize at the Oratorio
Society of New York’s Vocal Competition. Ian
Howell’s debut solo CD, 1685 and the Art of Ian Howell with American Bach
Soloists, was released in 2009 and features repertory by Domenico Scarlatti,
J.S. Bach, and G.F. Handel. Dr. Howell has recorded for the American Bach
Soloists, Warner Classics, Rhino, and Gothic labels. He can also be heard with
the all-male chamber choir Chanticleer on multiple albums, including the
Grammy Award-winning Lamentations and Praises.
Dr. Howell has taught at Yale, Swarthmore, and Rutgers Camden, and
Pan American Vocology Association’s Symposiums (2015, 2016), the NATS
National Conference (2016), and Harvard’s ArtsTechPsyche (2017), and is a
guest faculty member at the 2017 Vocal Pedagogy Professional Workshop at
The Boston Conservatory at Berklee, and Kenneth Bozeman’s Acoustic Vocal
Pedagogy Workshop. Currently, he teaches voice and voice pedagogy at the
New England Conservatory of Music, where he directs research in the NEC
Voice and Sound Analysis Laboratory. He was educated at Capital University,
the Yale School of Music, and the New England Conservatory of Music.
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